Warmen – interview met Janne (keyboards) & Antti ‘Warman’ Wirman (guitars)
Janne Wirman: “When I was involved in Children Of Bodom, I made a good living, but the music business is shit nowadays and now we just make Warmen music because we enjoy the music.”
Het gerucht gaat dat Finnen redelijk kort van stof zijn in een gesprek, maar daar heb ik tot nog toe niet veel van gemerkt. Ditmaal gebeurt dat wel, maar nochtans is het een bijzonder vrolijk en hartelijk onderonsje met de gebroeders Warman – Janne (toetsen) en Antti (gitaar) – die de band Warmen aanvoeren. Onder het motto van ‘het moet niet altijd lang, maar wel informatief zijn’, duiken we de leefwereld binnen van de band die de muzikale erfenis van Children Of Bodom verder uitdraagt met eigen werk.
Vera Matthijssens Ι 19 augustus 2025
In 2023 you came back with Warmen with a new album ‘Here For None’. That one was released with a new singer/guitarist Petri Lindroos (Ensiferum) and a new drummer Seppo Tarvainen. What happened next?
Janne: ‘Yeah we did our former album with a new line-up. We had so much fun with Petri and Seppo on our live shows after the previous album, that we wanted to continue that and we wanted to make a new record with the same line-up. Petri and Seppo are so much a part of the band.’
It is reflected in the song-writing of this new album, because everybody contributed as I understand…
Antti: ‘Yes, Seppo and Petri both had some ideas and guitar riffs and they sent some demo version songs to me and Janne and then we kind of arranged those ideas to songs. It makes this album more of a band album.’
It is also a heavier album I have the impression…
Antti: ‘Yes it is. We did not mean that to happen, but it naturally happened. We sat down and started writing new music and those songs were heavier.’
Janne: ‘I think that one of the reasons was that we knew that Petri was going to be the singer. We knew who was going to sing the songs this time.’
He must be busy, because he is also front man in Ensiferum…
Janne: ‘Yes, Petri has Ensiferum and that is fine with us. We do as much as we can and they do what they do. No problems.’
Lyric-wise there is no concept, but I would like to know more about the main themes. For instance, there are songs inspired by movies. Which movies did you have in mind on this record?
Janne: ‘I have seen so many various movies. It is all influenced by everything we have seen. It is a long kind of love story.’
I remember with Children Of Bodom, all musicians were fond of ‘Amadeus’…
‘Yes, that is true.’
Which kind of movies do you prefer?
Janne: ‘I know what you mean, but with Warmen we don’t have a kind of a theme movie. With Children Of Bodom we got so much ideas from one movie, ‘Amadeus’ inspired our whole career, but with Warmen unfortunately we don’t have one single movie we can pinpoint.’
On the other hand the lyrics also deal with your frustration about the way of the world, when you look around and see the state of this planet…
Antti: ‘Nowadays when you open up the news, everything is going to shit. There is war in Europe, a lot of things all over the world, things are not really good now. It is just a bunch of frustration about this shit.’
Antti, you have an own home studio. Are you specialized in work like that?
Antti: ‘No, when I moved to this house I wanted to have the possibility to record guitars. We built this studio with Janne and now with this album it is the first time we actually, not the second time – we also recorded the previous album, guitars and vocals, there. Now again.’
Because Janne, you did your keyboards at home I think…
Janne: ‘Yes. Correct. We recorded the bass and my keyboards at my home studio. We kind of split it in Antti’s place and my place.’
And then the Finnvox studio is also a very important place for you…
Janne: ‘Finnvox is very, very important for us. We did the drums there, you need a big room, a big studio, for the drums and then we went back for the mixing. This is kind of an old school thing, it is changing so much, also for us, but if you want a good mix, you have to go back to a real studio with a proper engineer to finish the mix.’
We have a very strong title for this album ‘Band Of Brothers’. That’s referring to both of you I guess, but also it reflects a kind of togetherness.
Janne: ‘We are in it together, but also with the whole band.’
On the artwork one can see two ravens. Are these Hugin and Munin from mythology?
Antti: ‘It is not reflected on the artwork, no mythological references, no.’
Who did the artwork?
Janne: ‘It is the same guy who did the artwork for ‘Here For None’. This time we gave him free hand to do whatever he wanted. We just gave little advices. It was perfect.’
There are only two songs on the album with slower tempo. One of them is ‘When Doves Cry Blood’.
Antti: ‘When we wrote ‘When Doves Cry Blood’, we wanted to have one song mid-tempo, a little bit slower. I think it sounds good. I think we achieved what we wanted to achieve with this. Mid tempo song.’
What are your ideas behind the last track ‘The Kiss Of Judas’. It is quite different and also longer…
Antti: ‘No big ideas, no big themes, but we wanted to have more… let us not say progressive, but a song with more elements. It was good to mark the final song. To be a bit more different, you know.’
There should be a song when you used ideas from Petri and Seppo only. Which one is it?
Antti: ‘It is ‘Untouched’.
As long as you live Janne, you are busy in music. Five years old you were when learning to play keyboards… Did you always have the opportunity to make a living out of it?
Janne: ‘No. When I was involved in Children Of Bodom, I made a good living, but the music business is shit nowadays and now we just make Warmen music just because we enjoy the music. There is no money in it, it is all bullshit. We love the live shows, we love going out and play for an audience, but actually the releasing of the music does not mean anything nowadays. It is absolutely bullshit and that is an unfortunate turn of events for the music business.’
Fortunately we still can listen to music…
Janne: ‘Of course, playing live is great, but for me it doesn’t pay anything to release new music and write new music. It just feels like unnecessary but we need that for filling our set list for the upcoming shows. It is all about playing live nowadays. We just needed more songs.’
And then hope that people will buy the merchandising…
Janne: ‘Yes, that is absolutely true. If you want to support the band, if you like the music, please buy the album and we have just released new merchandising. Buy a shirt, buy something from the merchandising, that is what’s really supporting the band nowadays.’
The touring will start around Summer Breeze, because at Summer Breeze you will play a release show of this album… I think that is something to look forward to…
Janne: ‘Yes. We would love to see as many fans as possible at the Summer Breeze festival. It is going to be a good time, we are going to have our release show and we are going to be there for the whole day to promote with new merchandise, so I hope to see you there.
There will be a European tour next after that and then you are going to focus on Finland with a headline tour, isn’t it?
Janne: ‘Yes. We have these shows in Europe. We will play in Germany, Hungary and Switzerland we do for the first time. We surely want to tour in the centre of Europe. Let us see what’s going to happen, but we would love to visit central Europe more. I know there is a good market out there and we would love to go on tour including these markets.
Thumbs up for you!
Both: ‘Thank you’.
